Our Canadian Roadtrip Adventure

Revelstoke

A short but sweet stop at Revelstoke. I'll do a separate post about the skiing here, because it warrants it, but to quickly paraphrase right now, is just F AWESOME!

But for now just a brief mention of our stay here, We were at the Sutton Place Hotel - the only on slope accommodation at Revelstoke. The ski hill is a mile or two from downtown where all other accommodation is based. Originally we were booked into one of the many motel style places but changed only a couple of months ago when a unit in the Sutton Place became available at a fairly decent rate, so we took it and so glad we did. Originally it was out of our budget. We have everything we need here, just a few steps to the main gondola lift (this resort has only 3 lifts, but boy does that not tell the story) and everything else within a stones throw. Nice little cafe, good bar for acres ski drinks and a really superb restaurant (the Rockford) which considering the location was truly excellent and really good value. Ate there twice - the first time we've done that so far.

The complex is made of three buildings, we were in building 2 which looks directly onto the slopes and we loved watching the piste groomers at work late at night. As with all the condo style places we've stayed at it has everything you need and plenty of space. We were on the 8th (top) floor and Fin really enjoyed trying to lose us in the lift. He easily got to grips with the layout of the place and as with everywhere else we've been to we felt really comfortable with letting him wander (just a little).

There's on onsite heated pool and hot tubs and just like in Fernie the pool was truly heated. Even in sub zero temperatures it was really comfortable in there, but disappointingly the pool was sat in between the buildings so did not afford the magnificent views we had while in the pool at Lizard Creek Lodge (Fernie).

Downtown Revelstoke is just another North American town, square blocks of buildings, a few bars, restaurants, shops, everything you need but not a particularly pretty or inspiring place. Maybe that's because we didn't spend enough time there to get a true feel for it, but I don't think we missed anything by staying up on the mountain. Fin found the museum which had some interesting ski history.

So far this has been our favourite place for the skiing, but for the holiday overall it doesn't quite live up to Fernie or Nelson. Would definitely return though, there is so much skiing potential yet to be sampled, watch out boys, this one may be coming your way!

Room 8227, Sutton Place Hotel, Revelstoke

Fin's cabin room

Watching the groomers in action from the balcony

Cold? Not me!

Boys will be boys

The pool was hot - the hot tubs were hotterer

Sutton Place Hotel lobby

Great food t the Rockford

Who is the most scariest?

Bears eat humans

This character was one of Canada's pioneering ski jumpers. The one on the left that is

Revelstoke museum

Revelstoke town

Sutton Place Hotel

Bluebird

Woke up this morning to a rare sight on this holiday. That little ball of yellow in the sky.

It's a proper bluebird day here in Revelstoke. But as I write this it's approaching 9am and we are almost packed, ready to move onto our next destination, Panorama. We are really looking forward to this one, not that we haven't greatly anticipated the others.

The sun peaking up on Revelstoke mountain, around 7.30am

And in all it's glory at 8.45am. It's gonna be an absolute cracker up there today, there's still lots of fresh pow left, let's hope the same is true in Panorama

The journey to Revelstoke

On Wednesday we left Nelson behind and drove over to Revelstoke. This involved using another of BC's Inland ferry services, this time the Upper Arrow Lake ferry from Galena Bay. These leave every hour on the half hour and we managed to time it well, arriving at the ferry around 13:20.

This really was a fantastic journey. There was one particular section from around 11:00am to 11:35am which was nothing short of spectacular .. couldn't stop smiling all the way, simply stunning scenery, beautiful beautiful beautiful. Included a few pictures below because I'm sure the video won't do it justice.

Driving over here really is a doddle (maybe I should hold fire on that before it bites me, we have to go over the infamous Rogers Pass tomorrow), but we really do eat up the miles so easily.

Thought there was a problem with the car, every now and then we'd hear a buzzing noise. The first time it happened I thought it might be a helicopter overhead, but it kept repeating and there was never a hell in sight. Sounded like something whirring or whizzing, would come and go for minutes at a time. Then it came again but this time we were travelling slower and I could hear it was coming from the inside of car. Simply turning the radio volume down dis the trick, t'was just poor reception on the radio from an otherwise silent frequency, that's all. Doh ... Was a little worried at the time though as there's zero cell phone signal for massively long stretches of road so we are praying on reliability and really don't need scares like this. Then there was the time when Karen wound her window down to take a photo of the frozen lake. We set off and, oh no, the window wouldn't go back up. It's less than zero outside, uh oh, what we gonna do. Thankfully (again), it was just a silly inadvertent engagement of the child window lock, had us worried for a couple of minutes though.

Anyway, so far we've filled the car up twice. Each time from around a quarter left in the tank and each time it's cost around £30. We're coming in under budget on fuel !! Yippee ...